{"product_id":"9781784746704","title":"How to Begin (by Edmund de Waal)","description":"\u003cp\u003e'Enchanting, illuminating and tender' - Nigel Slater‘I believe you can live in a book of poems’A book about finding a creative voice and becoming an artist via a startling rediscovery in Edmund de Waal’s family archives – letters between his grandmother and the charismatic poet Rainer Maria Rilke** With letters translated from the German by prizewinning translator, Karen Leeder **This is a story about how to begin.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn 1921, Elisabeth Ephrussi writes a letter to the great poet Rainer Maria Rilke. She too is a poet, or an aspiring one – a young law student in Vienna just beginning her creative life. To her surprise, Rilke writes back with advice. A five-year correspondence follows, an exchange of lyrical and exhortatory letters alongside books, translations, poems in manuscript. They never meet.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFifty years later, Elisabeth’s grandson, Edmund de Waal, wants to be a poet and a potter. He sends her his own poetry, and she responds with guidance and Rilke’s Duino Elegies.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHow to Begin follows Edmund’s journey as an artist. This is a book about failure, about starting again, about apprenticeship and asking for and then disregarding advice, about working out ways to keep going when you don’t know how.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt is a moving, intergenerational story about the traces of memory within a family, and a deeply personal reflection on how we learn resilience with the support of others. It is for any reader starting out, seeking the permission to begin.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Vintage Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67880556036323,"sku":"9781784746704","price":18.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1701\/6275\/files\/9781784746704.jpg?v=1793462302","url":"https:\/\/www.harbourbookshop.info\/products\/9781784746704","provider":"The Harbour Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}